YOUR VIEW: More Wall Street deregulation would condemn us to repeat mistakes

This is in response to those calling for more Wall Street deregulation. The Spanish-American poet and philosopher George Santayana once wrote "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Those in today's tea party who are still advocating for more deregulation must indeed have bad memories considering the deregulation efforts of the Bush administration and the economic crisis that resulted. Or of the deregulation of the banks during the Reagan/Bush administration that led to the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s. To doggedly subscribe to a policy of deregulation while ignoring the consequences of that deregulation seems to be an irrational, if not a reckless, policy.

During President Franklin Roosevelt's administration, regulations were put in place to avoid a repeat of the conditions that led to the Great Depression of the 1930s. Republicans, fearing a threat to business and growth, opposed passage of those reforms and targeted them for defeat in the years that followed. They believed economic conditions should be determined by free-market forces alone. Once free of those regulatory constraints, they would be able to generate so much wealth at the top that it would eventually trickle down to those at the lower levels.

Of course, we at the lower-income levels know how that worked out. The trickle never quite made it, but those at the top made out like bandits.

Most Republicans, in my opinion, fail to appreciate the inherent role that greed can play in ventures left uncontrolled and unregulated. Until they do, we are, as Santayana said, condemned to repeat the past.